1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surface emitting apparatus and an image display apparatus using this surface emitting apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, accompanying the spread of mobile telephones and information devices, there are demands for thinner, high quality, and high efficiency image display apparatuses. For these various demands, to meet the demand for thinner apparatuses, for example, backlights used in liquid crystal display apparatuses are proposed. With the backlight disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. HEI9-15425, many convex prism series, which reflect light with a high refractive index, are formed on one face of a light guide plate. By this means, thinner backlights can be realized.
On the other hand, to meet the demands for high quality and high efficiency apparatuses, for example, a planar light source that emits collimated light using laser light is proposed. The planar light source disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-169480 has a reflector element that reflects the light emitted from a laser light source in virtually parallel to a predetermined direction and a deflector element with a deflecting face that reflects the reflected light in a virtually right-angle direction. By this means, a collimated planar light source using a single laser light can be provided in a simple configuration.
However, in order that light from the light source is incident on the light guide plate sufficiently, in the backlight disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. HEI9-15425, the thickness of the light guide plate on which light from the light source is incident, needs to be thicker than the thickness of the light source. For this reason, backlights can be made thinner only to an extent.
Further, the planar light source disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-169480 uses a reflection volume hologram, which results in a greater cost and makes it difficult to produce output light with high luminance uniformity.